The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards honor journalists or their publications around the world who show courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment.^[1] Established in 1991, the awards are administered by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, non-governmental organization based in New York City.^[2] In addition to recognizing individuals, the organization seeks to focus local and international media coverage on countries where violations of press freedom are particularly serious.^[3]

Every November four to seven individuals or publications are honored at a banquet in New York City and given an award.^[4] The ceremony also honors the winner of the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for "lifelong work to advance press freedom".^[5] Past hosts have included crime correspondent and former hostage Terry A. Anderson,^[6] Amanpour host Christiane Amanpour,^[7] and NBC Nightly News anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw.^[1][3] In 1998, the ceremony was briefly disrupted by protesters who unfurled a banner calling for the release of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania's death row.^[8]

History

The first awards were given in 1991 to American photojournalist Bill Foley and his wife, journalist Cary Vaughan; Cameroonian reporter Pius Njawé; Chinese dissidents Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming; Russian television news anchor Tatyana Mitkova; and Guatemalan reporter Byron Barrera.^[9] In 2014, the organization awarded its twenty-fourth group of journalists.^[10] On three occasions, an award was also given to a news organization of which multiple staffers have been at risk: Tajikistan newspaper Navidi Vakhsh (1994), several reporters of which murdered during the 1992–1997 civil war;^[11] Guatemalan newspaper Siglo Veintiuno (1995), which was subject to police and army raids for its uncensored coverage of government corruption and human rights violations;^[12] and Turkish newspaper Özgür Gündem (1996), which was subject to a campaign of publication bans, assassinations, and arrests for its reporting on the conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party.^[13]

Occasionally, imprisoned laureates accept their awards at a later ceremony, such as China's Jiang Weiping, who was awarded in 2001 but attended the ceremony in 2009,^[14] and Azerbaijan's Eynulla Fatullayev, who was awarded in 2009 but attended the ceremony in 2011.^[5] Sri Lankan reporter J. S. Tissainayagam was also awarded in 2009 while imprisoned, but was released in time to attend the 2010 ceremony, quipping in his acceptance speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for being late."^[3]

The award was given posthumously on three occasions: to David Kaplan, an ABC News producer killed by a sniper in Sarajevo in 1992;^[6] to Paul Klebnikov, a Russian Forbes journalist shot to death in 2004 by unknown attackers;^[15] and to Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi journalist for Al Arabiya who was abducted and murdered in February 2006.^[16] A number of other laureates had been threatened or attacked in the year preceding their award, such as Guatemalan journalist Byron Barrera (1991), whose wife was murdered in an attack on their car,^[17] and Željko Kopanja (2000), who lost his legs in a car bomb.^[18] Other laureates have been killed after their awards, such as Irish crime reporter Veronica Guerin (1995), awarded a year before her murder,^[19] and Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana (1991), awarded two years before being fatally shot by a US soldier in Iraq.^[20] Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes (2002) died while still imprisoned; owing to conflicting reports and the secrecy of his confinement, the cause and year of his death remain unclear.^[21]

Recipients

This list includes the recipients of the award as recorded at the official CPJ website. It is sortable by year, name, and country; owing to naming conventions in different countries, not all names are sorted by last name. Names in italics are publications which have received the award.

Recipients by year and country

Year	Honorees	Country	Ref.
1991	Bill Foley and Cary Vaughan	United States	[9]
	Pius Njawé	Cameroon	[9]
	Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming	People's Republic of China	[9]
	Tatyana Mitkova	Russia	[9]
	Byron Barrera	Guatemala	[9]
1992	David Kaplan †	United States	[9]
	Mohammed Al-Sager	Kuwait	[9]
	Sony Esteus	Haiti	[9]
	Gwendolyn Lister	Namibia	[9]
	Thepchai Yong	Thailand	[9]
1993	Omar Belhouchet	Algeria	[9]
	Đoàn Viết Hoạt	Vietnam	[9]
	Nosa Igiebor	Nigeria	[9]
	Veran Matić	Serbia	[9]
	Ricardo Uceda	Peru	[9]
1994	Iqbal Athas	Sri Lanka	[9]
	Aziz Nesin	Turkey	[9]
	Yndamiro Restano	Cuba	[9]
	Daisy Li Yuet-Wah	Hong Kong	[9]
	Navidi Vakhsh	Tajikistan	[9]
1995	Yevgeny Kiselyov	Russia	[9]
	José Rubén Zamora Marroquín and Siglo Veintiuno	Guatemala	[9]
	Fred M'membe	Zambia	[9]
	Ahmad Taufik	Indonesia	[9]
	Veronica Guerin	Ireland	[9]
1996	Yusuf Jameel	India	[9]
	Jesús Blancornelas	Mexico	[9]
	Daoud Kuttab	Palestine	[9]
	Ocak Işık Yurtçu and Özgür Gündem	Turkey	[9]
1997	Christine Anyanwu	Nigeria	[22]
	Ying Chan and Shieh Chung-liang	Hong Kong, China,  Republic of China (Taiwan)	[22]
	Freedom Neruda	Ivory Coast	[22]
	Viktor Ivančić	Croatia	[22]
	Yelena Masyuk	Russia	[22]
1998	Grémah Boucar	Niger	[23]
	Gustavo Gorriti	Peru	[23]
	Goenawan Mohamad	Indonesia	[23]
	Pavel Sheremet	Belarus	[23]
	Ruth Simon	Eritrea	[23]
1999	Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández	Cuba	[24]
	Jesús Barraza Zavala	Mexico	[24]
	Baton Haxhiu	Kosovo	[24]
	Jugnu Mohsin and Najam Sethi	Pakistan	[24]
	María Cristina Caballero	Colombia	[24]
2000	Željko Kopanja	Bosnia and Herzegovina	[25]
	Modeste Mutinga	Democratic Republic of the Congo	[25]
	Steven Gan	Malaysia	[25]
	Mashallah Shamsolvaezin	Iran	[25]
2001	Jiang Weiping	People's Republic of China	[26]
	Geoffrey Nyarota	Zimbabwe	[26]
	Horacio Verbitsky	Argentina	[26]
	Mazen Dana	Palestine	[26]
2002	Ignacio Gómez	Colombia	[27]
	Tipu Sultan	Bangladesh	[27]
	Irina Petrushova	Kazakhstan	[27]
	Fesshaye Yohannes	Eritrea	[27]
2003	Abdul Samay Hamed	Afghanistan	[28]
	Aboubakr Jamaï	Morocco	[28]
	Musa Muradov	Russia	[28]
	Manuel Vázquez Portal	Cuba	[28]
2004	Svetlana Kalinkina	Belarus	[29]
	Aung Pwint and Thaung Tun	Burma	[29]
	Alexis Sinduhije	Burundi	[29]
	Paul Klebnikov †	United States	[29]
2005	Galima Bukharbaeva	Uzbekistan	[30]
	Beatrice Mtetwa	Zimbabwe	[30]
	Lúcio Flávio Pinto	Brazil	[30]
	Shi Tao	People's Republic of China	[30]
2006	Jesús Abad Colorado	Colombia	[31]
	Jamal Amer	Yemen	[31]
	Madi Ceesay	Gambia	[31]
	Atwar Bahjat †	Iraq	[31]
2007	Mazhar Abbas	Pakistan	[32]
	Dmitry Muratov	Russia	[32]
	Adela Navarro Bello	Mexico	[32]
	Gao Qinrong	People's Republic of China	[32]
2008	Bilal Hussein	Iraq	[33]
	Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad	Afghanistan	[33]
	Andrew Mwenda	Uganda	[33]
	Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez	Cuba	[33]
2009	Mustafa Haji Abdinur	Somalia	[34]
	Naziha Réjiba	Tunisia	[34]
	Eynulla Fatullayev	Azerbaijan	[34]
	J. S. Tissainayagam	Sri Lanka	[34]
2010	Mohammad Davari	Iran	[35]
	Nadira Isayeva	Russia	[35]
	Dawit Kebede	Ethiopia	[35]
	Laureano Márquez	Venezuela	[35]
2011	Mansoor al-Jamri	Bahrain	[5]
	Natalya Radina	Belarus	[5]
	Javier Valdez Cárdenas	Mexico	[5]
	Umar Cheema	Pakistan	[5]
2012	Mauri König	Brazil	[36]
	Dhondup Wangchen	China	[36]
	Azimzhan Askarov	Kyrgyzstan	[36]
	Mae Azango	Liberia	[36]
2013	Janet Hinostroza	Ecuador	[37]
	Bassem Youssef	Egypt	[37]
	Nedim Şener	Turkey	[37]
	Nguyễn Văn Hải	Vietnam	[37]
2014	Mikhail Zygar	Russia	[10]
	Ferial Haffajee	South Africa	[10]
	Siamak Ghaderi	Iran	[10]
	Aung Zaw	Burma	[10]
2015	Zulkiflee Anwar Haque	Malaysia	[38]
	Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently	Syria	[38]
	Cándido Figueredo Ruíz	Paraguay	[38]
	Zone 9 Bloggers	Ethiopia	[38]
2016	Mahmoud Abou Zeid	Egypt	[39]
	Malini Subramaniam	India	[39]
	Can Dündar	Turkey	[39]
	Óscar Martínez	El Salvador	[39]
2017	Pravit Rojanaphruk	Thailand	[40]
	Ahmed Abba	Cameroon	[40]
	Patricia Mayorga	Mexico	[40]
	Afrah Nasser	Yemen	[40]
2018	Amal Habani	Sudan	[41]
	Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh	Vietnam	[41]
	Luz Mely Reyes	Venezuela	[41]
	Anastasia Stanko	Ukraine	[41]
2019	Neha Dixit	India	[42]
	Patrícia Campos Mello	Brazil	[42]
	Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora	Nicaragua	[42]
	Maxence Melo Mubyazi	Tanzania	[42]
2020	Shahidul Alam	Bangladesh	[43]
	Mohammad Mosaed	Iran	[43]
	Dapo Olorunyomi	Nigeria	[43]
	Svetlana Prokopyeva	Russia	[43]
2021	Katsiaryna Barysevich	Belarus	[44]
	Anastasia Mejía	Guatemala	[44]
	Matías Guente	Mozambique	[44]
	Aye Chan Naing	Myanmar	[44]
2022	Abraham Jiménez Enoa	Cuba	[45]
	Niyaz Abdullah	Iraq	[45]
	Sevgil Musayeva	Ukraine	[45]
	Phạm Đoan Trang	Vietnam	[45]
2023	Nika Gvaramia	Georgia	[46]
	Anastasia Mejía	Netherlands	[46]
	Matías Guente	Mozambique	[46]
	Aye Chan Naing	Myanmar	[46]